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Friday, March 16, 2012

The Tripyramids 3/11/12

Since completing the NH48 around Christmas time, my brother Bill took a much deserved break from hiking, but it was such a beautiful day this past Sunday to get back into it with me on the Tripyramids. When I, myself go beyond two weeks without hiking, I really start to dislike that.

We got started around 9:20am, which is late for us, as we like to start early. The road walk was very pleasant along the groomed trail system, and things were going great to start.

Livermore Trail nearing Tripyramid Loop trails

After hopping onto the loop towards the North Slide, the trail meandered along the valley for a little bit before it opened up and began to steepen significantly. The slide just appears, and early on, it was looking steep.

Arriving at the base of the north slide

Up we go - Pemi peaks start to appear

Layer of soft snow over a hard pack

Beautiful view of Presidential's to the left

Getting some GoPro footage of us both climbing by

Looking back with the snow-capped Lafayette in distance

For a hike with very limited views the view from the North Slide was the most unexpectedly beautiful view, and as we reached neared the top of the slide, the effort until this point was worth every ounce. No matter what happened the rest of the trip, it was already amazing.With North peak in the bag, we looked forward to the easy trek across. Middle Tripyramid is shown below from near the North peak summit.

Middle Tripyramid from North Peak

The trail was packed out decently, but snow shoes were necessary for this section. We arrived to Middle peak to see summit flags all around. The views from Middle peak were actually extremely good, being able to see Lake Winnipesaukee and all.

Me on Middle Tripyramid - #39 on round 2

Lake Winnipesaukee from Middle Tripyramid

We continued on, and quickly, we were passing over South Tripyramid. We then took off our snow shoes, and prepared for some glissading. Before that, we took in the view from the South Slide while standing still.

View from top of South Tripyramid slide

After that, we cautiously went onto the open slide where the top had a lot of exposed rock we had to carefully maneuver around until they were sparse enough to get moving. To check out what it looks like going down you're going to have to watch the video below! Check out my rolling action to avoid exposed rocks and trees to keep going. If only the snow wasn't so wet, we would have traveled much faster. It was still awesomely fun!

When we got the the bottom, which was pretty quickly, we thought it was going to be an easy jaunt out, but we were wrong. Look at what we were greeted with. Snow shoes don't necessarily help this.

Tripyramid Loop Trail at bottom of slide

Below, my brother is shown where the trail was in relation to the aimless bushwhack we were following for a while on the way out to Livermore Trail.

This was an awesome hike and experiencing the slides makes this one special. With this Trip to the Trips, I've got 9 more to go for round 2.

Hike Stats

Trails: Livermore Trail, Tripyramid Loop

Distance: 11.1 miles

Elevation Gain: 3,215 ft

Book Time: 7hrs 14min

Below is a montage of footage from the trip, which includes awesome footage of going up the north slide and glissading the south slide!